The Lost Heir is a trilogy of Story Branching games created by Mike Walter and hosted by Choice of Games' user submitted label Hosted Games.
In the first game, The Fall of Daria, the player takes on the role of the Prince or Princess of Daria. After a brutal coup by a consortium of demon summoners and rebellious nobles destroys the kingdom and replaces it with a confederation of independent duchies, you escape into hiding in the village of Elmvale with a mentor from the castle. Later, you join the Adventurer's Guild, developing skills and gathering allies, and build toward a climactic confrontation with Alexander Zusak, master of the Planewalkers' Consortium.
In the second game, Forging a Kingdom, you're in exile again after your defeat at the hands of Alexander, your friends and allies scattered to the four winds. You must gather your friends, bring down the traitorous Dukes and restore the kingdom of Daria. But beware, for one of your former friends has turned against you, and Alexander and the Consortium still plot and scheme in the background.
The trilogy comes to its conclusion in Demon War. After the Battle of Tornassa in the previous game, Alexander Zusak tore open the veil between the worlds, summoning uncounted hordes of demons against your army and throwing the newly-reforged Daria into chaos. In the face of this overwhelming threat, you must challenge the Planewalkers in their own sanctum, brave a perilous voyage to an uncharted land, and challenge the ruins of the Som'reth, the first demon summoners, if you're to have any hope of defeating Alexander and his dark forces.
This game is set in the same universe as Walter's Life of a Wizard, taking place a long time after that game.
This trilogy contains examples of:
- The Ace: The Heir is extremely talented in whatever they do, though not to the level of Instant Expert, as they still require training to master their chosen skill. Exaggerated if the Legacy DLC is used, giving enough stat bonuses to become a master of their craft by the time they leave the starting area. By the end of the trilogy, you can easily max out three types of attack methods.
- Almighty Janitor: If you dedicate yourself to guard work throughout the first two games, you're promoted to Lieutenant, despite being commander of Daria's army. It's a meaningless title, but the soldiers respect that you've earned a military rank by your own efforts.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: Specifically, to get evil powers, you have to be evil; otherwise you can't take the appropriate prestige classes. Unless there's an evil god demanding otherwise, however, you can use your evil powers for good afterwards with no difficulty.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: The monk class, duh. There were times that you might not want to use bare hands to fight even as a monk, though.
- Black Knight: The Dark Knight class, gained by fallen knights. Joining the class comes with clerical powers and a sweet lookin' suit of black platemail.
- Black Magic:
- Necromancy is pure evil. While you can theoretically use necromancy purely for good, being a necromancer requires you to be an evil person, or you won't have the stomach to practice the rituals in the Book of the Dead.
- Likewise, a Druid of Decay must be pure evil to walk the path of diseased and decaying organisms.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Unknown is indifferent to its followers' morality, whether they be good or evil; for all it cares you can be a Dark Knight of rainbows and kittens.note It is itself considered an evil god, by virtue of not caring.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: The Legacy DLC, which adds numerous places to get big stat and treasure gains, to help make up for what turned out to be a somewhat arcane and frustrating skill system. You can master your core stats by the first third of the first game.
- Church Militant: "Cleric" is the term for a follower of a faith's militant orders.
- The Dark Arts:
- Demon summoning isn't evil. It is dangerous, however, and a lot of people think of it as evil. There are good reasons why the Academy put it under strict controls under the Kingdom.
- Soulburning is the magic of using one's own life force to fuel magic, practiced by Jace/Jess. It's morally neutral, but it's creepy, and it's very easy to misuse.
- Elective Monarchy: The tradition of the Grand Council allows nobles to choose a monarch in the case of a disputed succession. In the second game, a major plot involves persuading the nobility of Brightwater to vote for restoring the kingdom of Daria. (The rest of Daria is simply reconquered.)
- Everyone Is Bi: Gender is completely irrelevant to romance in Daria. The only possible exception is the player character; all potential love interests are bisexual.
- Evil Is Easy: Inverted. It's easier to be good than evil, because it's trivial to buy off your evil with visits to the temples. Being evil requires actual dark deeds.
- Evil Pays Better: Usually, it does. There's one major benefit for being good in the first game, and only good guys can become The Paladin, but that's it. Evil's usually much more effective and earns you more money (or saves you money that the good route would demand you spend) and gives you access to multiple Prestige Classes that Good doesn't get (including the Dark Knight, which is almost identical to the Paladin but is easier to get).
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampires: Averted. If you resist giving in to the thirst, you throw off the curse. So while you still can be a good person overall but still a vampire through the Karma Meter, becoming one in the first place means that you're a murderous junkie.
- Gender Flip: All love interests have their gender chosen by the player.
- Homosexual Reproduction: There's a spell that does this. If you're engaged to a same-sex partner, Cunari casts it on you without your permission.
- Karma Meter: The Morality stat measures your alignment, marking your allegiance to good or evil, the fate of your soul, and the possibility of access to certain classes.
- Ki Manipulation: Monks who train with The Heavenly Eye can do this, which mostly manifest as a palm strike or touch that, per the game's description, liquefies internal organs. It also enhances your striking power to the point where you can split a large tree in two lengthwise, destroy doors and walls, or even strike so hard you set things on fire. Choices to perform Ki attacks basically act as "I win" buttons, with one exception.
- Knight Errant: Knights are an institution in Daria sworn to adventure and do good in the world.
- Lightning Bruiser: The monk class. Its bonuses put emphasis on agility, perception, and strength.
- Magic Knight: Just about any combination of weapon skill and magic skill qualifies, and a couple of classes revolve around this.
- The Cleric class practices divine magic and combat skills, as befitting a Church Militant. The Paladin and Dark Knight also fit.
- The Elemental Archer is an archer who creates magic arrows.
- The Rune Warrior actively uses magic to enhance themselves in combat.
- Ki is a form of magic, so Ki Strike Monks likewise use magically-enhanced fists.
- In a sideways use of this trope, the Artificer is a skilled magician and fighter who makes their own magic weapons.
- Master-Apprentice Chain: If you're a squire, you study under Sir Maxson, and later on can become a knight and take a squire of your own.
- Murder, Inc.: The Assassins' Guild. Interestingly, despite the existence of a Karma Meter and the fact that murder is usually evil, the Assassins are morally neutral, and killing in the course of the job has no repercussions for your soul.
- Mystical Pregnancy: Two ways. If your lover is of the same sex, then a spell is cast to make Homosexual Reproduction possible. If you decided make your character asexual, then you are eventually given a choice to allow Cunari cast a spell to make your character pregnant in order to produce an heir.
- Off with His Head!: Once you become king, you can solve a lot of problems this way. As Daria is a constitutional monarchy, you're not supposed to do this, but your soldiers will obey if your idea of "rule of law" involves murdering anyone in the way.
- One-Hit Kill: Ki Manipulation performed by high level monks is this for anything but the largest monsters.
- Pair the Spares: There's an achievement for making sure all the potential Love Interest characters in your party is coupled off.
- The Paladin: Available as a Prestige Class for good characters, though the requirements are extremely specific. You have to be a priest and a cleric, and also have a combat class outside of the clergy; just being a focused Church Militant won't cut it. On the plus side, you get both high combat effectiveness and holy powers. You also get a unique ride and an magical sword.
- Precursors: The Som'reth, an ancient demon-summoning race who inexplicably vanished, leaving behind plunderable ruins filled with Demonstones.
- Prestige Class:
- They start becoming available in the second book, and represent specialties with abilities not available to the basic classes.
- Knights are a special case, as you can earn the class early in the second game if you're a squire in the first. They have two further prestige classes; Dark Knights are Knights corrupted by evil patrons, and Dragon Knights are a class you can advance to by being a Knight and a Dragon Rider.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Using the Legacy DLC has the player character from Life of a Wizard helping you from time to time using a form of time travel using Astral Projection that only the player can see. They're efforts are hampered by a demon that can also time travel in the same way. You can customize their race, gender, and morality.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Even after taking the crown, you're still personally involved in just about everything, including the fighting. This is exaggerated if you personally take jobs for pay (including thieving, for that matter), something that is not even slightly unusual in Daria.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Starting with the second game, you can usually do this if you like. Daria is allegedly a constitutional monarchy, but since there's a civil war going on, nobody can stop you if you decide to order people executed without trial or otherwise shred the laws for your own benefit. The main exception (mainly for gameplay purposes) is that you can't take kingdom funds for personal use.
- The Strategist:
- If the Heir takes the War Master prestige class to its conclusion, they become a better general than the general of their army.
- A Sage is also a learned tactician, and their insights can direct the army almost as effectively as a War Master's.
- Super Registration Act:
- Wizards are required to be affiliated with the Academy. Technically, the law is that spellbooks need to be obtained through and registered with the Academy, but you can't be a wizard without a spellbook. You may also have a spellbook from your childhood or acquire one illegally from the Thieves' Guild. Or you can learn non-wizardly magic, such as by being a priest.
- Demon summoners, before the coup, were under the regulation of the Academy as well. You can restore this law afterwards if you like.
- Soulburning is not illegal at the start, but you can set up a registration act for Soulburners as well. Jace/Jess will not approve, though.
- Weird Trade Union: The Thieves' Guild and Assassins' Guild, to name two. There's also the Adventurers' Guild, which is more of a clearinghouse for mercenaries.
- What's Up, King Dude?: Even after you take the throne, commoners feel free to come up to you on the street, offer you jobs or try to do business with you (this is particularly true for guild associates). In the third game, you can try to defy this with some success.
